I take great interest in your Hyperloop proposal, but I feel that the problem of
providing high-speed passenger transportation, to the mass of citizens, requires
a different approach, one that affords individuals the option of using their
own vehicles (although mass-transit vehicles will also be available), and making
the high-speed network accessible to everyone in any urban or suburban area.

A full technical discussion may be found at http://Hyperloop.LeviCar.com/. You
asked to make Hyperloop "open source", and this link provides my contribution.

I have long been critical of the national High-Speed Interstate Passenger Rail
(HSIPR)
proposal, just as you are
about California's own proposed system. I feel that both are only the latest
incarnations of a 200-year-old technology that best be put to rest. Neither
provides much of an advantage over existing systems, even though they would be
very expensive.

Hyperloop, for all its speed on its one line, will not provide the fastest
door-to-door service possible for most people. One must consider the total
time for the trip, not just for the high-speed central segment. Also, there
is a lot of money to be made for freight service -- traditionally, freight
has subsidized passenger service. Any high-speed system will be more viable,
economically, if it also handles freight.

I have proposed a Danby-Powell Magnetic-Levitation (MagLev) system of individual
vehicles. I call it LeviCar (see http://www.LeviCar.com), and it has a freight counterpart,
RoboTrail, that uses the same rail network, but different depots.
The network uses my hexOgrid
hexagrammoid grid, which can provide depots within ten miles, by road, in any
built-up (urban and suburban) area; rural and wilderness areas will also be
served, but the distance to a depot would be considerably longer.

I think that you would be interested in LeviCar. Tesla Motors, with its
experience and commitment to quality, is the one automobile manufacturer in
the United States that is best positioned to make LeviCars. Even if you don't
have the capacity, you can still design LeviCar's components, patent such
technology, and license it to other manufacturers.

Lastly, there is still room for your original Hyperloop design in a MagLev network.
The MagLev hexOgrid provides 300-mph transportation, nearly point-to-point. To get
faster service, the most heavily-traveled passenger routes could be supplemented
with Vactrain- or Hyperloop- like transportation tubes (freight would be relegated
to the standard 300-mph grid alone). I like to call such a shortcut tube a "wormhole".

Because it is easier to climb over mountains with MagLev, a wormhole from Grapevine to
San Martin would speed thing up for the LA-SF route. One possible interstate wormhole
would run from the eastern end of California to central Illinois. Passengers would ride
on the standard network from the Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas areas (and points
in-between) to the western terminus of this wormhole, ride it to Illinois, and then use
the standard network to get to Chicago, Milwaukee, Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, and beyond.

I even have devised a means that the Hyperloop suction turbines can be combined
with MagLev vehicles in wormholes.